Reply to: Happy 30th Birthday, ZX81

[amcdonald]

Neither did anyone else.

There were bits of the QL (One Per Desk) being sold in electronics remainder shops for donkey's years.

Not to mention bits of the C5.

Wish I'd bought some now.

It's because he foolishly marketed them as business machines rather than accepting that most people had bought the Speccie to play games

[Churchill]

Manic Miner

On a ZX81

[MarillionFan]

I did buy one along with the 16k rampack thingie. Lots of fun

Did someone say 16k!

[amcdonald]

Wolfenstein was released in 1992; but before that, in 1991, the legendary John Carmack of Id Software had written an EGA first person shooter (the first ever, I think) called Catacomb 3-D I should know, as I had a thumping headache the first time I played it for a couple of hours.

3D Monster Maze was released in 1981, a full decade before Catacomb or Wolfenstein.

So whilst it's primitive it should get some credit for what followed really...3D for 1981 was a big thing!

For its time it was impressive and required a whopping 16k of Ram which for a ZX81 was like the Doom of its time

[VectraMan]

I had one of these:



Then later an Atmos:



Which at least had a proper keyboard.

[DaveB]

ZX81, with the RAM Pack that talked to you when the house was quiet and lost everything you had done if you wiggled it even slightly.

BBC Model B.
Sharp MZ-80k. You had to load the OS from tape every time you switched it on.
Apple IIc.

Then off to Uni where I got to play with Sun 150 Worksations, A PDP-11 of some vintage and a VAX 11/750 as well as seeing a PC for the first time, learning 68000 asembley code on a Mac Plus and developing a serious Nethack habit.

[OwlHoot]

3D Monster Maze was years before Wolfenstein that's the point, I can't think of an original before that

Wolfenstein was released in 1992; but before that, in 1991, the legendary John Carmack of Id Software had written an EGA first person shooter (the first ever, I think) called Catacomb 3-D I should know, as I had a thumping headache the first time I played it for a couple of hours.

[Iron Condor]

And Z80 Assembler, those were the days

PUSH BC
POP DE
LDIR
DJNZ
..


Fond memories of a wasted youth

[amcdonald]

And his dad was Wolfenstein. I downloaded Wolfenstein on my iPod, but it must have been rubbish as I've since deleted it and don't even recall what it was like now. I'm off to see whether Doom is [freely] available for the iPod...

3D Monster Maze was years before Wolfenstein that's the point, I can't think of an original before that

[escapeUK]

Sinclair ZX81: 30 years old tomorrow ? reghardware

I never had one. Or a Spectrum. Or a C5.

Neither did I, but I had a Commodore Vic 20 which started me off as a programmer all those years ago. Thanks Commodore

Interesting stats, a vic 20 had:-

CPU: MOS 6502, 1MHz
RAM: 5K (3.5K for the user)



Just imagine where things will be in another 30 years. Computers better be like Star Trek or I wont be happy

[TimberWolf]

3D Monster Maze is Dooms grandad

Elite was another special moment, but I must have been the only person who hated manual docking

3D Ant Attack on the speccie was another

And his dad was Wolfenstein. I downloaded Wolfenstein on my iPod, but it must have been rubbish as I've since deleted it and don't even recall what it was like now. I'm off to see whether Doom is [freely] available for the iPod...

[amcdonald]

3D Monster Maze, ah nostalgia isn't what it used to be

3D Monster Maze is Dooms grandad

Elite was another special moment, but I must have been the only person who hated manual docking

3D Ant Attack on the speccie was another

[Cliphead]

3D Monster Maze was the killer app for the ZX81

I was an Acorn chap myself, but I remember looking at the screenshots in the computer mags and thinking that there was nothing of that kind for the Atom. Ah well, we got Elite first on the Beeb a few years down the line

I bought a Commodore 64 just to play Elite and all these years later I still get the urge sometimes.

[NickFitz]

3D Monster Maze, ah nostalgia isn't what it used to be

3D Monster Maze was the killer app for the ZX81

I was an Acorn chap myself, but I remember looking at the screenshots in the computer mags and thinking that there was nothing of that kind for the Atom. Ah well, we got Elite first on the Beeb a few years down the line

As the Wikipedia article I link to above points out, the canonical way of distributing a machine code program for the ZX81 was to embed it in line 0 of a BASIC program as the content of a REM statement that caused the BASIC interpreter to treat the Z80 code as a comment; the rest of the BASIC program took care of any startup housekeeping, and the system wouldn't allow you to edit line 0 as 0 was an illegal line number in BASIC. Upon such recondite hackery was the entire "computer revolution" founded

[amcdonald]

ZX81 Download Page

For your PC, ZX81 emulator and games etc

3D Monster Maze, ah nostalgia isn't what it used to be